


The Yellow Bug

by tomoyofanel



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Agoraphobia, Gen, Loneliness, Madness, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 12:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1226230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomoyofanel/pseuds/tomoyofanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jefferson is a prisoner in his golden house. He has to watch his daughter from distance. It’s even more than what he went through in Wonderland. Until Emma Swan appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Yellow Bug

He wakes up every day as if it is yesterday as if it is tomorrow. Everyday is the same day as before. Time doesn’t exist in Storybrooke. It is worst than Wonderland. Time in Wonderland is abstract while time in Storybrooke is a broken clock. Stupid clock. Everyday starts at 8:14am and ends at 8:14pm. It is a loop. He hates time but time loop is the worst thing he ever lived. Everyday is present, past and future. He knows how that works, he is used to these things. He was a realm jumper. He traveled in time and space.

Stupid clock.

He wakes up in this house. An unknown house he knows as his but that isn’t his. Windows and doors stay closed. He never leaves because he can’t leave. Outside is like Wonderland, it is dangerous and something is wrong with people. People he heard about and met a long time before Wonderland. They are people he once knew but they aren’t the people he remembers. He remembers other people with other clothes and he remembers the very same people with these lives they live every day in Storybrooke.

When everything started, he tried to go out and talked to them. Windows and doors were closed and nobody came to meet him in this house that wasn’t his. He broke glass of windows and locks of doors but he still couldn’t go outside because he was another kind of person here, he was a man who couldn’t go outside because of fear. The thing is, he always knows it isn’t fear. He can’t go outside of this house because of something else.

Magic.

His life is full of magic adventures, magic people, magic objects, magic everything but in Storybrooke, magic doesn’t exist so he never knew magic. Except he can feel magic. He learned to. Magic is somewhere in the town. He wakes up in this house every morning and can’t go outside but telescopes are everywhere in the place. Each window is coupled with a telescope. He can’t go outside but he knows everything. His eyes are on the fake town, on the fake people who lives a fake life. He doesn’t care about them, he never did. He only cares about only one person in Storybrooke.

His daughter’s name is Grace, except he’s not a father and the girl’s name is Paige. He never talked to her or her parents. Except, they are her fake parents because he is her father. Before Wonderland, he was a father. He’s sure of that. Except he’s not. He is. But he’s not.

The telescope is his only friend, really.

Telescopes are windows and doors and he can go everywhere he wants with them. He wonders who put them here but he understands why they are here. He follows the person with the magic every day. He feels magic because he learned to because he’s a realm jumper and can feel this kind of things. Except, magic doesn’t exist in Storybrooke. Then, why the mayor has it?

Regina.

He knows the mayor since he came in town except he never came in town, he is there, that’s all, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. He woke up one day and Wonderland wasn’t the world he was in. Storybrooke was his new home, his new jail, his new hell. No time, no people, no daughter. He knows the mayor who has magic because she is Regina, the Queen. He knows the Queen, he knows her very well, from a past life, one he left behind because he was a father.

The mayor adopted a kid one day. Everything is the same every day except for her. The kid can grow up. The kid does grow up when any other kid is just here as a ghost, as a corpse. He watches the kid but he watches the other kids too because they are corpses. He imagined them eaten by worms from the inside. He wakes him up every night. The nightmares from Wonderland, and the nightmares from here because he is scared Grace was eaten by worms too. He checks on her every morning.

He remembers being a father. Grace. His daughter was Grace. Wonderland knew her name, he just lost his own. It is okay now. He remembers his own name. Jefferson.

His name is Jefferson.

Jefferson.

Grace.

His daughter’s name is Grace.

Paige doesn’t exist. Paige isn’t his daughter. She can’t exist if she isn’t his daughter because he is a father. A father has a daughter and this daughter’s name is Grace.

Everyday is the same as yesterday and the same as tomorrow because the town is cursed. Regina cursed the town. People don’t know who they are but he does and he can’t forget, he won’t forget.

Except sometimes, he does.

Two lives. He doesn’t have any child. He is Grace’s father. Paige doesn’t know him. Grace is waiting for him. Home is a wonderful house with empty rooms. Home is in the forest and he can’t offer a toy to his child. Two kind of suffering. He is alone because he is afraid. He is alone because he is cursed. Only one truth: no one is waiting for him now.

He was alone.

He is alone.

He will be alone.

Past, present and future are the same here.

People are sad. He can see it with the telescopes. People are as empty as him. They don’t see other people. They lost those they loved. Now, they are like him. They just don’t know why they are empty; don’t know what they miss so much, what they lost yesterday, this morning or years before. Broken clock.

Jefferson knows everything because he can’t go outside so his mind goes everywhere everytime. It hurts him. His mind is ill. He was mad because of Wonderland. He still is mad but this madness is a new kind. Storybrooke took him his mind and his daughter. He watches his daughter and tries to look after his mind. Every day is a battle. He hopes for the end of the war.

He hopes for the end of the war.

He hopes for the end of—

Today is different because there is a car he never saw until today. A yellow bug. A ridiculous yellow bug drives in the main road of Storybrooke. It stops in the middle of the town, right in the middle, he’s sure of that. Something is happening, he can fell it.

Magic.

Someone who isn’t empty gets out of the car and slams the door. Someone filled with magic. The kid does the same but doesn’t slam the door. Doors. They talk. Jefferson can see the woman. She had blond curly hair. Grace’s mother did too. Every move she makes is full of something. Every word she says seem to spread it.

Magic.

Jefferson laughs. It hurts his throat because it’s been years since the last time he did. Years or decades or centuries. He doesn’t remember the sound of his daughter’s laugh. He can’t breathe. He doesn’t remember. He can’t breathe. How can he not remember this?

He opens the window for some new fresh air. The air is full of magic, even here. Windows and doors. The window is open. He opens every window and every door. He stares at his porch, at the stairs, at the alley.

He waits.

He waits.

He steps outside. A step on the porch and he can’t breathe again. He goes inside again and closes the door.

He can’t go out because he’s scared.

He looks in the telescope and sees the blond curly woman in his car again.

She’s going to leave.

No.

She can’t.

She—

The yellow bug stopped.

Jefferson breathes again.

He doesn’t sleep that night and watches the blond curly woman all day. He almost forgets Grace. He checks on her before he keeps watching the new girl. The night comes and she doesn’t leave.

The yellow bug stays in front of Granny’s.

The clock isn’t broken anymore.

Jefferson doesn’t stop watching her.


End file.
